Refusing to Run
by Venus Smurf
Summary: Logan's tired of waiting for Marie, and he's finally going to do something about it...
1. Refusing to Run

A.N.: Well, this is my first try at an X-Men fic, and even though I'm sure this has been done a thousand times before, I had to get it out of my system. Of course, I wrote this entire thing without being able to watch the movies and check the accuracy of what I've written, so please let me know if I made any mistakes!

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Summary: Logan's tired of waiting for Marie, and he's finally going to do something about it…

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"Refusing to Run"

He wasn't going to run again. Not this time, maybe not ever, though he knew he'd probably want to, often enough. She tended to have that affect on him, tended to make him want to run for the hills and not come back until she was old and wrinkled and couldn't possibly make his blood boil like it did every time he so much as thought about her. He knew that was ridiculous, of course, because at the same time he wanted to stay here, to make a life with her and never leave for any reason ever again, and he knew that it didn't matter if she was seventy or seventeen because she would still make him as crazy with love fifty years from now as she already did.

Love. There was that word again. He was using it so often now, if only in his own thoughts, but did he really know what it was? He'd never loved anyone before, had never cared about anyone but himself, and the intensity of these emotions still shocked him. They made him uneasy, and he sometimes found himself wishing that he didn't care so much for her. She was a weakness he didn't know how to handle, and he didn't like how dependent he was becoming. Nobody had ever had this much power over him, and he hated that he needed her so much, he who had never needed anyone.

He wasn't good enough for her. He knew that, everybody knew that. He was too old for her, for one thing, too old and much too cynical. Maybe she wasn't quite innocent herself, but she was still worlds better than he, and she deserved someone with a lot less emotional baggage than he had even on his best days. She deserved someone who could take care of her, someone who could make her happy as well as provide for her. If nothing else, he decided tiredly, she deserved someone who at least knew his own last name. Of course, no matter _what _she deserved, he wasn't going to let her go again. He'd tried that once, had tried to walk away and leave her until they were both ready to deal with the strength of his love for her, but his actions had only made things harder for both of them. She'd found someone else while he was gone, and even though he'd already realized that she would never feel for that kid what she felt for him, just knowing that she was looking at another male _that _way was killing him inside. He _needed _Marie, needed her more than he needed answers, more than he needed the solitude that had always been so great a part of himself. Without her, nothing seemed right, and he simply wasn't willing to risk losing her again, especially not to some upstart kid who wouldn't appreciate what he had.

Logan sighed, annoyance briefly flashing across his rugged, handsome face. I'm pathetic, he thought wryly. Who-knows-how-many years of being alone, of building up this tough guy image and learning not to need anyone, and I've been brought to my knees by some slip of a girl who, to further the irony, isn't even legal. How had his life come to this? He sighed again, briefly closing his green eyes. Marie wasn't ready for him, he knew. She might think she was, and he might wish she was, but she was still too young to settle down permanently—and Logan simply wasn't going to settle for anything else. When he finally made Marie his, it was going to be for keeps, and he didn't think she was ready to deal with forever just yet. Hell, he thought suddenly, I don't know if _I'm _ready to take on forever…

No, scratch that, he mused, a wry smile twisting his lips. I may be the world's original loner, but a forever with Marie is better than anything else I can imagine. Now, if I can just get her to dump that kid for me…

Not that Logan was actually going to _do _anything about the kid. Marie's relationship with Bobby Drake—with the _Iceman_—wasn't the real obstacle keeping Logan and Marie apart, and Logan knew it. Besides, he'd be damned if he was going to do anything to hurt Marie, and actively sabotaging one of the few relationships she'd managed to build would definitely hurt her. She just didn't have enough people in her life to lose even one; she was worse than he was, in that department, and Logan could admit that Bobby Drake was good for Marie. The kid made her feel normal, and that was something that even Logan couldn't do for her. _He _was too bound up in all that she'd gone through already, in all that she'd suffered and lost, and the memories of Liberty Island would always be a wall between them. Bobby was free of that taint, and Marie didn't even have to carry a bit of his soul in her head like she did Logan's. Never mind that Bobby wasn't man enough for her anyway, never mind that Logan already understood and loved Marie more than the Iceman ever could. None of it mattered, because Logan didn't want Marie ever to feel as alone as he always had until he'd met her, and Bobby was the best way to make certain that didn't happen.

Still, he was getting antsy. As far back as he could remember—which, since the first thirty-odd years of his life were pretty much a blank, really wasn't saying a whole lot—he'd never stayed in one place this long. Hell, he didn't think he'd ever stayed in one place even _half _as long, and who knew how many months or years he would have to wait before Marie was ready for him? She probably didn't even realize how much was hanging on her. He'd never actually tried to hide how he felt, after all, but the only two emotions he ever really showed were irritation and anger, and only a damned mind reader could really have known how deep his feelings for her went. 

A mind reader like the professor…or Jean.

Jean had definitely known. Not at first, of course, since even Logan hadn't realized how he felt until that hellish night with Magneto and his death machine, but certainly before he'd left for Alkali Lake. Marie had put him in a coma for the second time since he'd met her, but he'd probably been projecting his concern for her all over the place from the moment he'd woken up, and Jean would have picked up on that. He'd known he was betraying his secret, even then, so he'd started flirting with Jean, distracting her with some mushy nonsense that he'd all but forgotten now. He still thought it had worked, too, at least until he'd come back for Marie, months later, and learned that she had moved on without him. 

He hadn't known what to expect, when he'd come back that day. He'd only been gone for a year, but as hard as it had been for him, it was an eternity for someone Marie's age. Would she be angry with him for leaving her, or would that piece of him inside her help her understand why he'd had to go? His doubts and questions were inside her, as well as everything else that he was, and she would have known how important his past had become to him. She might not have guessed that _she _was the real reason he had left, of course, that she was the reason he wanted to know who he was because he at least wanted to have a last name to offer her, but she must have bought into the excuse he'd given everyone else, or she wouldn't have just let him leave, unchallenged. Marie wasn't the sort to back down from anything, especially not with _him _inside her, and if she'd thought he was running because of her, she would have said something to let him know how cowardly and unacceptable that was. Then again, maybe she _had _understood why he was running, and had just decided to let him go. She wouldn't want him to feel trapped, his Marie, and maybe his promise that he'd return one day had been enough for her…and maybe not. He'd never even called her, in all the time he was gone, had never even let her know he was alive or checked on her to see how she was doing. Would she be angry, hurt? Or would she come running, just glad to have him back with her? God knew he'd been thinking about this every moment of every day since he'd left her. 

She'd _seemed _happy enough to see him, though, that first day back. She'd run into the hall within seconds of his arrival, and for a minute, as he'd waited almost nervously for her appearance, he'd thought he could see tears in her eyes. But then she'd come closer, and he'd decided he must have imagined it, because her eyes were shining with unconcealed joy and nothing else. She'd called his name, her voice all but shaking with excitement and maybe a little relief that he'd finally come back, or that he'd come back at all when she'd probably been wondering if he ever would. She'd thrown her arms around him, and while his heart had been going like a jackhammer at the contact, he'd instinctively hugged her back. He hadn't been able to help himself, though he'd known how dangerous touching her could be………and not because of her mutation, either. He'd never cared about what her touch could do to him physically; he'd only cared about what she could do to him emotionally.Logan just didn't _hug _anyone, ever, for any reason. For one thing, he'd never had anyone he cared about enough even to touch, but he'd also never wanted to reveal some weakness by openly caring for someone. The fact that he'd embraced this slip of a girl in a place where just about everyone single person he knew would see, the fact that he hadn't thought twice about doing so, hadn't thought twice about letting her get so close when he would never have permitted this from anyone else on the entire planet, scared the hell out of him. 

She'd pulled back almost immediately, though, and he found himself wishing almost desperately that she hadn't. She'd looked so beautiful, even more so than when he'd first left. She'd been a child then, her face merely pretty and still round with a little baby-fat though her eyes hadn't held anything of childhood innocence even then. Now, though, she'd filled out a little more, her clothing showing off curves that just hadn't been there a year ago. Her hair was a little longer, and cut to be more than just schoolgirl cute. That streak of white, the greatest reminder of what she'd gone through, had framed her face and made her seem that much older. Her face had thinned and become even more striking, her eyes even more hauntingly beautiful. She was a woman now, though she was still too young, and everything about her, even the way she moved, reflected the changes she'd undergone. 

His love for her had risen in him, then, and almost made him dizzy, and even when they were exchanging flirtatious banter about his coming back, even when she'd been saying that she hadn't missed him and he'd known she didn't expect him to believe her even a little bit, he'd been fighting a terrible urge to turn around and run in the opposite direction before he exposed himself completely. She'd been smiling at him the entire time, her emotions written all over her beautiful face, and at the same time he'd wondered how the _hell _he'd lived without seeing her for so long. What had he been thinking, to leave her like that? 

And then Bobby Drake had shown up, walking with a confidence and possessiveness reminiscent of Logan's own, and announced that Marie was his. The upstart had even marked his territory in a way, using his mutation to freeze the hand Logan offered. Logan had merely shaken off the discomfort, of course, pasting a stoic expression onto his face and almost patiently reminding himself that he couldn't gut the kid with Marie standing right there. He hadn't even been bothered by Bobby's display, not then. The entire thing had been so silly and overdone that it hadn't occurred to Logan to be jealous, at least not until Marie had turned her smile to Bobby and away from Logan, and his entire world had come crashing down around his ears as he realized she was _nervous_, like a little girl caught with her hand in the cookie jar. She'd been afraid of how he would react, and that told Logan, more than anything else could have, that she felt something for this upstart, that Bobby wasn't just somebody she'd distracted herself with until Logan came back for her. She actually _cared_. 

Oh, yeah. He'd been hit right between the eyes, with that one. Emotions going all over the place, and every friggin' telepath in the county must've been picking up on them. He just hadn't seen it coming, not that anything _could _have prepared him for the realization that Marie really wasn't his. Nothing could have made him strong against knowing that the one person he actually gave a damn about, the one person he would have given his life to protect, hadn't waited for him. 

Bobby never knew how close he'd been to becoming a eunuch.

Thank God for Storm. She'd arrived just in the nick of time, probably keeping Logan from giving Bobby a real up close and personal view of what his own intestines looked like. She'd greeted him, distracted him just long enough for him to get control of the animal inside him. She hadn't known what she was doing for him, of course, and maybe he still would've gone after the upstart if Jean hadn't also chosen that moment to make an appearance. 

Everyone thought he was in love with Jean, that he'd left because he couldn't deal with the fact that she was with someone else, or that he'd left to get some answers about his past but would still come back and take her away from ol' One-Eye sooner or later. Consciously or not, he'd certainly encouraged that belief, in the short time he'd been at the Institute. He'd flirted with Jean, hit on her almost mercilessly and done everything he could to make her enamored of him. Truth was, though, that he'd never cared if she'd fallen for him or not. He knew she hadn't, actually, and he was glad for that. He'd gone after her only because he could, only because it made Scott mad and nothing was more fun than making Scott mad…and because having everyone think he wanted Jean kept them from realizing that he was actually head over heels in love with the slender brunette all of them were deathly afraid of touching. Frankly, if Bobby hadn't been there with Marie, if Logan could have just claimed the girl and taken off again, he probably wouldn't even have thought twice about Jean. He was attracted to her, certainly, and he considered her to be as much a friend as anyone could be, but that's all it was, all it could ever be. Logan couldn't see anything but Marie, and maybe that wouldn't have changed even if he'd met Jean first. 

Still, he'd kept his eyes on the redhead as she'd descended the stairs, knowing that it was better to pretend he couldn't take his eyes off her than to look over at Marie and see the way she was still hanging onto Bobby, her tiny fingers engulfed in his. Jean had practically glided towards him, one hand resting gently on the stair railing, whispering his name like it was the answer to a question she'd been asking all her life without ever really hoping to find a solution. He'd stared up at her, a little subdued by the sheer _calm _she was projecting, trying to shake himself out of whatever it was seeing Marie with Bobby had done to him. He called out Jean's name in return, and while he knew he sounded like a love-sick idiot, like he was pining for Jean rather than Marie, he wasn't concerned with her at all. His only thoughts had still been of Marie, though the girl hadn't realized it either because Bobby had pulled her away by then, taking her out of Logan's reach while he was too distracted by the woman he was supposed to be lusting after. 

At least Jean hadn't asked him to talk about it. God, _that_would have made his descent into pansyness official. Even if he'd wanted to tell her the truth, though, she hadn't given him a chance. She'd exchanged a few words of greetings, flirted with him a little, and then taken off with Storm before he could so much as begin to collect his thoughts. She'd left him behind with all these feelings still roiling around inside him and no possible outlet, with a houseful of kids he didn't know the first thing about and the girl he loved under the same roof as him for the first time in a year, and gone off to track down some mutant who obviously didn't want to be found.

He'd gotten through that afternoon easily enough, at least. He'd managed to stay as far from Rogue as he could, distracting himself once more by prowling the grounds and making sure everything was as it should be. Then, when he'd gone over the house enough times that even he couldn't think of another reason to stay away, he'd gone and hidden in his room like a true coward. He'd known Marie was probably waiting for him, wanting to speak to him, but he also knew that he just wasn't up to it. He wanted nothing more than to be with her, to look at her and have her smile that special smile that she'd always saved just for him, and yet he realized that he wouldn't be able to control himself if she did. He wanted her too badly, and even though he'd forced down what he'd experienced when he'd seen her with Bobby earlier that afternoon, he didn't want to take the chance of doing something stupid that would alienate her forever.

He'd stayed in his room until everyone else had gone to bed and the house was completely quiet, and then tried to sleep himself. The nightmares hadn't let him, though, and even when he'd given up and chosen to just stay awake he hadn't been able to get her face out of his mind. Thoughts of her eventually drove him from his bed, and he'd wandered downstairs and into the kitchen, hoping to find something alcoholic to drink so he could knock himself out or at least go back to the regular old naked-in-a-public-place-while-green-penguins-dance-on-my-head type nightmares normal people had. Those he could have handled. Thoughts of Marie, he couldn't.

Of course, he hadn't counted on running into the upstart so soon. The Iceman had been perched at the kitchen island, gloomily eating a tub of ice cream. He'd looked up at the older man as Logan had entered, a myriad of very readable expressions crossing his face. Logan had known exactly what the kid was feeling, though it had never even occurred to him to just turn around and leave. Why should he go, just because his only rival was already in the same room? He'd gone into the kitchen, the small talk he offered his way of asking for a truce or at least of telling the kid that he wasn't going to rip him apart like he'd been planning to do earlier. Bobby had taken up on the unspoken treaty a little too eagerly, but even Logan wouldn't have thought the kid could be stupid enough to talk about Marie like that. Did the Iceman have a death wish? Telling someone like Logan that he wanted to get 'closer' to the girl Logan loved, and then bringing Jean into it on top of everything else, was even more self-destructive and dangerous than running in front of a speeding semi. After a conversation like _that, _Logan had been entirely ready to shove a pencil through his ear…or, better yet, through Bobby's.

He'd been almost grateful when Stryker's men had arrived, because battling for survival was something he understood. He didn't have to hold himself back from a fight like he had to with Marie and especially with Bobby, though the distraction the military goons provided hadn't been nearly enough. Every other time he'd had to fight for his life like this, every other time he'd been threatened, he'd survived by becoming an animal, by giving up what humanity he might have had so he could protect himself and not have to worry about his conscience when somebody else had to die so he wouldn't. This time had been different, though, because for once his becoming an animal had nothing to do with protecting himself and everything to do with protecting Marie. All he'd been able to think about was getting to her, saving her before they could take her away and maybe finish what Magneto had started. Nothing else had mattered to him but that. 

So he'd crept around the manor, looking for Marie rather than escaping when he could have and then running down her attackers in a feat of what might have been heroics in another man but was really just him being pissed off and taking it out on people even Charles wouldn't fault him for killing. Then, because the animal inside him wouldn't let him leave when these guys were still walking around and invading his territory, he'd locked Marie in the tunnel and gone back for more. He'd known Marie would be safe with Bobby, and a bloody, life-or-death fight had been exactly what he'd thought he needed to relax and maybe get back a little of the self he'd been before he'd met Marie and developed this damned need for her. 

But then Stryker himself had arrived, and it wasn't just a nice relaxing fight anymore. Maybe Logan had only stayed behind because he'd wanted to prove to himself that he could let Marie out of his sight and not go trailing off after her like some whipped puppy, but Stryker's presence had changed all that, had given him a chance to regain some of his past, to understand who he was and where he'd come from. Here was his chance to learn if, just maybe, there was something in him that could make him worthy of Marie in spite of everything else that he was, and then he could stop fighting himself and just make her his once and for all. Nothing had come of it, of course, because Marie had come back for him, Bobby in tow, and for her sake he had suppressed the questions inside himself and gone with her. She'd needed him, and since he'd once promised he'd stick with her and take care of her, since he loved her when he'd never loved anything or anyone before, her needs had to take precedence over his own. 

He almost wished he hadn't gone with her. Sure, Stryker would have carted him off to be studied and prodded like those other kids or even shot him point blank, but at least then he wouldn't have had to deal with his emotions when Marie had given him back his dogtags. He'd stopped expecting to get them back a long time ago, and he wouldn't have wanted them even if he had. He now thought of them as being more hers than his, just like that part of him in her head was now hers, and having Marie give them up had hurt like hell, even to a man who would never admit to feeling pain no matter how bad it was. He'd wondered, then, if she'd been telling him that she'd moved on, that she didn't need his protection anymore because she didn't need _him._ Her begging him to stay with her earlier might only have been her way of protecting him from himself and nothing more.

He told himself that it didn't matter. _He _needed _her_, and even if the feeling wasn't as mutual as he'd once thought, he wasn't about to let go of her just because he was starting to wonder if she'd grown out of whatever it was she'd once felt for him. Walking away from her once had been sheer stupidity, but walking away twice would be suicide. Whether or not he'd lost her already, he knew perfectly well that she'd be gone for certain if he left her again, and then _he'd _be lost, because he wasn't going to live without her. 

Had Jean known that, too? Probably. He'd seen it in her eyes, that day when the missile had blown out the back of the jet and taken Marie with it. He'd thought he'd lost Marie, had thought she'd been taken from him once and for all, and he still couldn't believe how ready he was to fling himself after her, to die with her so he wouldn't have to face that forever alone. Bobby must have had the same idea, because the kid had started struggling with his seat belt, trying to free himself as though he actually believed he could do something to save her. To this day, even Logan didn't know whether or not his "No!" had been to keep Bobby from throwing himself after her or to keep his own heart from shattering completely. Maybe both.

He'd glanced at Jean once that part of the danger was over, once Marie was safe again, and he'd known she was reading the turmoil in his thoughts and in his heart. Her mouth had tightened, her eyes becoming a little sad, and he'd realized that no matter how hard he tried to hide his love for Marie from himself, he'd never be able to hide it from Jean. He'd realized, then, that she'd probably known all along, and maybe that's why she'd pushed him away when he'd tried to kiss her later that day. Maybe Jean had known, even then, that he was using her to keep his mind off Marie, to make himself believe that he wanted the woman over the girl. Jean had never tolerated pretenses, and even though he'd hidden his feelings from just about everyone else, Jean hadn't bought into any of it. She had never let him hide the truth from himself, from her…especially not from Marie. Whether she was aware of it or not, the telepath had been challenging him to admit his love for the girl every time her eyes had met his, every time she'd spoken to him. She'd known how much he needed Marie even before he did, and from the start she'd been trying to force him to stop being such a damned coward and just admit how he felt. 

Logan closed his eyes, groaning a little. Damn her, he thought. Why couldn't Jean have just gone along with the charade, helped him deny his love for just a little longer? They might all have been better off, if she had. He wasn't the best choice of a mate for anyone, let alone a girl who craved stability as much as Marie did. How would Marie feel, he wondered, the first time he started feeling claustrophobic again, the first time he started getting really edgy and wanted to take off? No matter how strong his love for Marie was, no matter how determined he'd become to stick around no matter what, running was simply part of his nature, and he was afraid that Marie would always be expecting him to walk away from her. Logan didn't want that kind of doubt between them, but he didn't know how he could convince her that he wasn't going anywhere. 

Logan sighed again, knowing he should go find Marie and just deal with this whole mess. He hadn't really spoken to her since they'd come back from Alkali Lake, and he didn't want her to think he was avoiding her, even if that's exactly what he was doing. The tension between them was already bad enough, though she didn't understand where it had come from or why it existed at all. She couldn't know that he was having trouble looking at her because every time he did he was being tortured by guilt—guilt over how tempted he'd been to take what Mystique had offered when she'd morphed into Marie even though he'd known she couldn't be even a shadow of what Marie was, guilt for feeling glad that it had been Jean who'd died and not Marie. Just...guilt. 

But one thing was certain: no matter how much guilt he felt over loving a certain slip of a girl who deserved better, he wasn't running again. Not ever. He wasn't going anywhere until he had Marie, and maybe it was finally time to do something about it.


	2. Memories

A.N.: I'd wanted to do a one-shot on Rogue/Logan's first meeting, but I'm not going to get to it, so I just incorporated it into this fic. It made the story a bit longer than I'd anticipated, though, so I'll also have to split the second half into two parts. The next chapter should have more of what-happened-after stuff everybody was asking for.

Anyway, don't forget to read and review! (Just keep it a little cleaner this time, okay? I don't need any more comments about Logan being a pedophile. If that's the best you can come up with, I don't want to hear from you anyway.)

Reader Responses from the last part are at the bottom.

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CHAPTER TWO: Memories

Not far from the place where Logan silently brooded, his thoughts completely focused on a certain dark-haired girl, a group of young people had gathered in the courtyard of a school that was not quite a school. There were probably eleven teenagers in all, some sprawled on the fresh-cut grass, others perched on low, sun-warmed cement benches. The students were smiling, exchanging bits of gossip or cheerfully complaining about the work load their professors had given them. No matter what else might be going on in the world, this was, at least for them, only a typical day.

Of them all, only one young student was not laughing or talking or even truly listening. The girl of Logan's dreams sat a little apart from everyone else, maintaining her distance out of habit as much as out of necessity, and, though she could not, of course, have known it, her eyes were every bit as brooding as Logan's. She silently stared out into nothing, clearly thinking hard. Her companions didn't notice, or, if they did, they weren't saying anything to the girl herself. This was not a place where anyone was questioned too deeply about anything, and a girl who had been hunted by some of the most powerful mutants alive, a girl whose touch alone could drain a man's very life in seconds and who had befriended the most unfriendly and frightening of mutants, was certainly not an exception.

Still, some of the other mutants glanced at the girl from time to time, vague curiosity evident in their eyes. Rogue was one of the odder individuals at the school, and nobody had ever really known what to make of her. She looked normal enough, on the outside, and was in fact every bit as beautiful as Logan believed her to be. She was a lovely thing, this girl, with auburn hair falling loosely about her shoulders, a single streak of white framing her face and somehow making her seem even more pale and delicate than she really was. Her eyes were a deep chocolate, and more expressive than eyes should be. She held herself with a grace unusual in a girl her age, with the complete inner control of one who is very aware of herself and all around her. She was a woman in a girl's body, though if any of her companions knew her well enough to see that, they were too lacking in experience themselves to put the idea into words.

The girl quietly sighed, leaned back on her bench and tried to stretch her legs without jeopardizing the distance she had put between herself and her fellows. She was tempted to close her eyes, tempted to simply curl up and go to sleep, but she didn't. Sleep was something she generally tried to avoid, at least as much as she could. It left her vulnerable, allowed her mind to replay memories she would much rather forget, and so she usually fought it as long as she could. She didn't want to remember who she was, where she had come from and what she had done in the past. She didn't want to remember the people she had hurt.

Of course, forgetting required that her mind cooperate, and it wasn't going to, today. As she tilted her head back to stare up at the cloudless sky, and as her brown eyes absently followed the path of a bird in flight, the memories came back, and she found that she wasn't quite able to think of anything else. Images were flashing through her mind, and with them came all of the emotions she'd struggled through once already.

She remembered her childhood, that happy time when she'd been just like everyone else, when she'd been innocent. She'd been only a girl, then, a girl pretending to be a woman but not having any idea just how hard life could be or what she'd have to go through before she could cross the threshold into adulthood. She'd had everything planned out for her life, all those years ago—travel, school, maybe marriage and a couple of kids somewhere along the road. It had all seemed so easy, so beautiful. She knew differently now.

And then David had come along, and she'd felt the first beginnings of real womanhood. She'd fallen for him, fallen hard, and even though she now recognized that what she'd felt was nothing more than puppy love, it had seemed like everything to her younger self. She'd wanted nothing more than to be with David for as long as she lived, to spend her life with him and hopefully figure out what that meant as they went along. She'd wanted him to be _hers_, and wasn't that ironic considering the fact that when she really fell in love it would be with a man who wouldn't ever belong to anyone, least of all her?

So she'd kissed David, one lazy afternoon in her bedroom, the movement of their lips matching the sweet, innocent sounds coming from her mother's piano downstairs. It was her first kiss, and her only one, and it had been everything she'd ever dreamed it would be. Maybe it was a little more _physical _than she'd been expecting—again, the irony being that _everything _with Logan was physical—but it had still been very, very wonderful…at least until the end, when her powers had kicked in and the kiss had turned into something else. Her entire world had changed, in that moment, though of course she hadn't realized it because she was too busy sucking the life out of her sort-of-boyfriend. She'd only realized what she was doing when it was almost too late, when she'd already taken a piece of David's soul into herself and become a little of what he had been.

She'd been too distracted by the kiss to sense the moment it had changed, but she soon realized that something was very wrong. She'd pulled away, eyes wide with terror as she saw the veins all but popping out of David's neck and face, knowing she'd hurt him but unable to understand what she'd done or how she'd done it. She'd scrambled to the other side of the room, huddling in a corner and too shocked to call for help, only beginning to scream when she realized _he was still inside her_, his terror burning through her mind even though she knew he wasn't consciousness anymore and she shouldn't have been feeling what he'd felt even if he had been.

And the worst part was that she hadn't even been thinking about David at all, at that point. All she'd cared about, in that instant before her parents thudded up the stairs and into her room, was that she wasn't herself, that David had somehow taken a piece of _her _rather than the other way around, as it really was. Her thoughts weren't her thoughts, her mind no longer wholly her own, but even then, as she fought with her shock and with this new, faint other in her mind, she'd been cursing herself, thinking she was worse than a monster because her fears and her screams were still more for herself and this thing she'd done rather than the one she'd done it to. She'd only been thinking about herself, in that moment, terrified of what her parents might say, terrified of what this would do to her life. David hadn't mattered at all, not the real David, and she would hate herself for that later.

Then again, she'd been right to be terrified. Her parents had immediately called an ambulance, her father tagging along after the paramedics to make sure David was all right even though he wouldn't believe she'd had anything to do with what happened to the boy until later, her mother staying behind and trying to get some sense out of the child she would soon come to fear. Of course, her attempts to calm Marie hadn't really mattered, because the girl had already pulled into herself in case someone else tried to invade her as David had. She hadn't let her mother come near her, had only locked herself in her own room so she wouldn't have to speak to anyone or explain what had happened when she really didn't know herself.

She didn't come out for days, though her parents could hear her crying softly to herself sometimes. They didn't push her, not even when the sobbing turned to screams of anguish as they often did, not even when she called out to them through the door, begging them not to hate her for what she'd done but still refusing to let them in to see her. They never answered, just left food by the door every couple of hours and looked away when she crept, ghost-like, down the hallway to the bathroom. They were never quite able to find the words to say to this pale girl they didn't know anymore.

Not that she would have listened even if they had.

The situation didn't last. David had been young, unformed and almost as much of a child as Marie had been before this. He hadn't left much of an impression, though of course that was actually worse. His thoughts in her mind were so quiet, so faint and unobtrusive, at least after the first few days, that she eventually stopped noticing them at all. They'd become _her _thoughts, her ideas, her feelings. She didn't even recognize David in them anymore, though she would never be able to watch football again, after this. David had been a football player.

She also couldn't go back to the way things had been, and even though she didn't know what people were saying about David, even though she didn't know what her parents were thinking, she knew that much. A week after David had been carted to the hospital, in a coma and without any reason for it, Marie silently opened her door and left her bedroom. She'd showered and changed her clothes for the first time in days…and she had a duffle bag slung over her shoulder. She slipped quietly down the stairs, down the hallway and past the living room where her mother was still playing the same tune on the piano, past her father's office where the door was shut even though it was the middle of the morning and he should have been at work. She didn't know if he was or not.

She moved lightly, probably because she hadn't eaten most of the food her mother had left for her and so had lost a great deal of weight, and her footsteps made so little noise that her mother wouldn't have heard her even if she hadn't been on the piano. She certainly didn't notice as Marie slid past the living room, down another hallway and then into the kitchen. When she emerged from the pantry several minutes later, the pack that had once been practically empty was now so full the zippers would barely close. She shifted the weight of it onto her other shoulder, and, without a backwards glance, turned and walked out the back door. She never saw her parents again.

Though it would be clear enough later, she couldn't have explained, at the time, why she'd left. Perhaps it was only that she'd recognized the moment in which her childhood had ended, and she knew she couldn't have gone on as she had been. That part of her life was over, and staying in the same house she'd grown up in, pretending everything was normal when it so very obviously wasn't…it just hadn't been something she could have coped with. And after the way her parents had looked at her, she couldn't have coped with them, either. She didn't want to spend the rest of her life wondering if they would blame her, hate her…fear her. She didn't want to see them flinch away from her touch. It would have broken her, frankly, and it was easier to just walk away, to never look back. It was easier to go out on her own, search for someplace where she wouldn't have to pretend she was normal, where nobody knew her or where nobody would care if she was tainted because everybody else was tainted, too.

In all the dreamings of her younger years, she'd wanted most to go to Canada, to a place like enough to her home that she wouldn't be afraid, but different enough to be an adventure, and now that she didn't have a home, she wouldn't even consider going anywhere else. It wouldn't be the trip she'd dreamed about, when she would have had money and food and a place to return to, but it was better than anything else. She could go there, start over, maybe reinvent herself. It was as good a plan as any.

It wasn't easy. Her food ran out long before she was ready for it, and she'd never had much money to begin with. Predictably, she took to stealing, slipping wallets from pockets, shoplifting from grocery stores. She wasn't a very good thief, at first, but necessity is a superb teacher, and she learned. She learned to target places and people less likely to catch her, learned to slip away when her judgment proved false and they figured out what she was doing anyway. She would never be great at it, of course, but then she wouldn't have wanted to be. She only wanted to survive, and if the fare wasn't great and she never quite had enough to eat, that was exactly what she was doing.

She ended up trekking all the way across the country, walking in the beginning, wearing through at least two pairs of shoes and having to waste hours stealing new ones. After a while, as her feet carried her further north, as the summer ended and winter began, she reconciled herself to hitchhiking. She tried not to be stupid about who she accepted lifts from, though there was a time or two when she practically had to jump out of moving cars just to get away from the less scrupulous men. It didn't bother her all that much, truthfully, because while she knew her youth and gender made her appear as more or less a walking target, she also knew that no man would ever be able to hurt her. There'd been enough times, over the past months, when she'd brushed up against other people, felt the first stirrings of her power before she could jerk away, and she no longer had to question the form her "gift" would take. She no longer had to wonder what would happen when she touched someone.

At least she'd been lucky, and those brief touches had never amounted to anything. She'd always been able to pull away, before, save both herself and her potential victims. She hadn't hurt anyone, hadn't absorbed anyone. She was still herself, though she often wondered how that could really be a good thing.

She never thought about calling her parents. She didn't want to hear them begging her to come home, didn't want to hear the little catch that would appear in their voices because they didn't really mean it. She didn't want to acknowledge what she'd done, either, or why she'd run away, and anyway that part of her life really was over. She wasn't their daughter anymore, wasn't their innocent little girl, the one they'd failed to protect from herself. She wasn't Marie, anymore.

She did call David, once. Three months after she'd left, she stopped at a pay phone in some nameless little town in Illinois. She'd begged some change to make the call, refused to give her name when David's mother answered. She only asked how he was doing, whether or not he'd recovered. His mother, puzzled and more than a little suspicious, admitted that David had been in a coma for three months but was now fine. She didn't say what had caused it, and Marie didn't ask. The conversation ended quickly.

It wasn't a good life, and it only got harder as the weeks dragged on. There were plenty of times when Marie was fine, when she was able to feed herself and be almost free, but then there were more times when her stomach was empty and she didn't think she would live to see the next sunrise. There were times when she hated herself and all that had brought her to this, times when she almost started back home. There just weren't any times when she felt pity for herself, or when she questioned her wisdom in leaving the only home she'd ever had. No matter how bad things got, she never wished she hadn't left.

She was in one of the bad times, when she met Logan. She was past the border, then, and she hadn't eaten for days. She'd been hungry and cold, tired and despairing. She'd been about to give up, and she'd decided that she'd stop, after the next town. She'd settle down, see if she could find a job, see if she could stop running. She didn't have a choice, because something told her that things were only going to get worse from here on out, as the weather dropped below freezing and as the towns grew smaller and scarcer. She was simply out of options.

Of course, she'd been assuming that the next town she came to would actually _be _a town, and it wasn't. Laughlin City was more of a way station than a town, with nothing but a gas pump and a seedy-looking bar. There was nothing for her here, but she'd gone inside anyway, too cold and too hungry to care that this probably wasn't the best place even for her. Her skin might not protect her here, not when most of these men were armed and could very likely snap her neck with a thought and before her powers could kick in.

She regretted her decision almost immediately. True, she was warmer inside, but there wasn't anything else she could do for herself. The only food came from the surly barman behind the counter, and so there wasn't any possibility of stealing what little there was. She also didn't like the looks the other men were giving her, and she knew, from the way they were staring at her, that looking young and innocent wasn't going to help her get what she needed in a place like this. She could see the desire in their eyes, could see the darkness of their hearts reflecting in their faces. It made her uneasy, and she found herself thinking that coming into this place had probably been the worst decision she'd ever made.

And then she'd seen _him_, and her life changed for the second time. He was standing in a metal cage set in the center of the room, the kind she'd seen before in other bars and knew were meant for men to fight in. A fight had just ended, in fact, and from what she could tell, it had been quick and dirty. The winner was leaning against the grating as the other man was literally carried away, and even though his back was to her, she couldn't help noticing how angry and tired he looked. His shirt was off, a thin sheen of sweat coating a torso so tightly muscled that he might have been a body builder. She stared at him for a few moments, as she slipped through the crowd and headed closer to the cage, watching him with eyes that had widened in spite of the more shocking things she'd seen in her travels. She could sense the danger in him.

Another man had entered the ring, by then, shouting an angry challenge to the first man, who didn't seem to care all that much. He had a drink in his hand, and he took a quick swig of the contents. The bell rang, and the challenger barreled in, intent on something more than an honest fight. He lunged at the first man, but the fighter didn't even turn around. That was obviously a mistake, as the second fighter landed a vicious kick to the small of his back, and then two punches to his face when he finally spun around. The fighter went down and was kicked twice more.

The crowd was cheering, clearly happy to see the reigning champion fall, but even as the cheers continued, the second man was readying himself for another punch. He didn't get to make it. The first man, the one Marie had thought was dangerous, suddenly lifted his body up, spun and met the other man's fist with his own. The fighter didn't even flinch at the contact, though everyone in the room could here the sickening crunch of bones being broken. Then, as the second man cried out in pain and fell back, he pushed himself to his feet.

The fight was over quickly, after that. A few punches with his seemingly rock-like fist, a few kicks of his own in retaliation, and the challenger went down amidst the catcalls and booing of his bar mates. He, too, was carted away, slung between a couple of men like so much dead weight. The crowd was still shouting in anger as the first man—Wolverine?—was proclaimed the winner. He still didn't seem to care. He only prowled the edges of the cage, looking every inch the predator he'd just proven himself to be, and then resumed his old position against the grating. He pulled a thick cigar from somewhere about his person, though his jeans were tight enough that she didn't think he could have kept it in his pockets, and began to smoke, waiting for the next challenge that didn't come.

Some of the patrons took off as no other challenger came forth, their night's entertainment over, but she stayed where she was. She could see the man's face now, though of course she'd caught glimpses of it in during the fight, and she couldn't help staring. She'd seen plenty of fighting men in her journey, but never one like this. He was handsome in a rugged, animalistic sort of way, and older than herself by at least ten or even fifteen years. His hair was spiked a little on each side of his head, and while this would have been ludicrous on anyone else, somehow it just _fit_ him, like he'd been born that way and to change it would be to change too big a part of himself. He looked…strong, and mean, and apathetic. He also still looked dangerous, perhaps even more now that she'd seen what he could do.

She might have left, then, because she'd realized this crowd was a lot rougher than even she was used to, because even though that fighter fascinated her, she didn't want to stick around in case he got mad again and somehow happened to take it out on her. She just didn't have anywhere else to go. It was too cold outside for walking, and she wasn't about to trust herself to any of the men or women she'd seen here. So she sighed, slipped over to the now almost empty counter and perched at one of the stools, waited for something to happen so she could figure out what to do next. She didn't have to wait long.

The man from the cage was suddenly next to her, taking a seat a short distance from hers. He ordered a drink, glanced at her briefly and then looked away again, and she found herself staring hard at him in return. There hadn't been any sympathy in his eyes, or compassion or friendliness or anything at all encouraging, but there also wasn't any lust or animosity, and that was something of a novelty for her. He wasn't looking at her as the other men had, as an object of desire or a way to satisfy their own sick fantasies. He wasn't looking at her at all anymore, in fact. It was as though she didn't exist, to him, and somehow that was more encouraging than it should have been.

Maybe that was why she tried to warn him, when the man he'd knocked down earlier came back and tried to pick another fight, and maybe it was just from what the other man had said, about this Wolverine taking a beating and somehow still being able to walk away. She'd stared at them both, eyes wide once more, wondering if maybe, just maybe, this fighter could be like her, with abilities he shouldn't have, with secrets he couldn't share. Maybe she wasn't alone anymore.

The fight had happened anyway, her suspicions quickly confirmed as the metal claws erupted from his hands and he nearly sliced his attacker's throat open. She didn't know if he refrained only because he really wasn't as dangerous as he looked, or if he simply didn't want to give himself a murder rap. Maybe he already had one. She didn't even think it was because the bar tender had a rifle pointed at the fighter's head, because he honestly didn't seem to care about that any more than he'd cared about the blows he'd taken in the ring. He only turned his head slightly, glancing at the rifle from the corner of his eye, and then attacked. The hand that wasn't at the other man's throat lashed out, lightening quick, metal blades fanning out from his knuckles, and sliced the gun into pieces.

He hadn't once looked at her since the fight had started, but when he left, she followed him anyway.

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**Reader Responses: **

**Keikochan3: **Thank you for the compliments! Loved hearing from you.

**Dark-lil-devil: **I'm so sorry to keep you waiting that long. I'm just a very busy person, and I don't often have time to work on these things. I'll try to do a little better with the next section, though.

**Sodapop**** Allerdyce: **They're obviously my favorite couple, too. I think they're perfect for each other—Marie helping Logan be more human, Logan loving Marie even when she thinks nobody else could. And I completely agree with your analysis of the man. You're pretty darn insightful, did you know that?

**Fan: **I thank you for the compliments!

**Hachigatsu**** and Shigatsu: **Have I ever told you that I adore you? You're one of my favorite reviewers, and I think I'd get all depressed if I didn't hear from you. You're such a wonderful writer yourself that your opinion means the world to me. Thank you for taking the time to read my stuff!

**Sassy-chan: **Thank you, beloved Sassy-chan. As always, it's a joy to hear from you. Your words are always so intelligent and flattering! I'm glad you liked this, and I look forward to hearing from you again.

**Katie: **Well, I thank you for both the compliments and the interest you have shown. It was wonderful to hear from you.

**Karen11: **That's a compliment in itself! I hope to hear from you again.

**TheWolf**Loved hearing from you. Your review was short but sweet, and I enjoyed it.

**CleoStarre**Yes, and it took me forever to write it, too. I'm glad you liked it, though, because that made my efforts worthwhile. I thank you for the input.


	3. Changes

A.N.: Okay, so it's a shorter chapter than usual. I had to split the final chapter up, and the first section just isn't as long. Oh, well. It's still better than having the final chapter be thirty pages long!

Don't forget to read and review, and check out the reader responses at the bottom of the chapter.

**This story can also be found at DeadDolphinandFloggedHorse.somethingorother (I might not be 100 percent on the name, but I don't have time to check right now. And the site is actually pretty awesome, no matter what impression the name gives.) Check it out.**

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CHAPTER THREE: Changes

Just as she hadn't known why she'd felt the need to leave her home until after it was too late to turn back, just as she hadn't known why her skin had suddenly become so deadly, Marie hadn't known why she'd decided to follow the fighter back into the snow that night. It hadn't seemed like a good idea even when she'd first come up with it, and if she'd had more than two seconds to think about the matter, she might have turned back. She'd known she was probably being phenomenally stupid, because after all she didn't have any idea of what this strange, fierce man might be capable of doing. He could be a killer, for all she knew, could be a child molester. He could be anything, and her sudden impulse to tag after him was beyond reckless.

She hadn't cared. She'd spent the last few months not trusting anyone, and quite frankly she was tired of it. She wanted—_needed_—someone to give her faith to, and no matter how much she knew she'd probably end up regretting her actions, this Wolverine was it. And even if he wasn't willing to help her in any way and her faith in him proved misplaced, she obviously couldn't have stayed at the bar. The moment she'd tried to warn the fighter, she'd lost any chance she might have had at sympathy from any of the other patrons. She'd sided with a mutant, and even if they hadn't realized she was one herself, she'd automatically been guilty by association. They wouldn't have tolerated her presence after that, and this man seemed to be her only chance at survival. At the very least, she'd reasoned, he might be good for a ride out of this godforsaken hell-hole masquerading as a city.

He'd surprised her, though. The first time she'd seen him, she'd only been able to think about how dangerous he'd seemed. She hadn't been scared of him, exactly—she never would be, though just about everyone else _always _was—but he still hadn't struck her as the type of guy who'd take pity on some nameless street kid. She certainly hadn't expected him to let her stay with him, though of course she knew he'd considered leaving her in the middle of the road when he finally realized she'd stowed away in the back of his beat-up trailer. _Would _he have left her, if he'd known what he would have to go through for her sake? And would she have gone with him in the first place, if she had known what he would soon come to mean to her, if she'd known how addicted to him she would become? She didn't usually like to think about that, though since she could no longer even imagine a life without him, the question probably didn't matter anymore.

Initial doubts aside, she would never regret going with him. She'd left her home because she hadn't been accepted by her own parents or even by herself, but having known her for less than five minutes, Logan had accepted her without question. Even after she'd admitted to her mutation, he hadn't so much as batted an eye. He'd only asked for her name, refused to accept the mutant one she'd chosen for herself, and she would think, later, that _this _was the moment when she first came to love him. He hadn't seen her as _just _a mutant at all, and for the first time since she'd run away from home, she'd wondered if maybe she really wasn't the monster she'd believed herself to be for so long. Maybe she was still worthy of being called a human being.

And Logan, for all his many, many commitment issues, had shown her what true devotion was. Marie hadn't known much about what a real relationship should be, before him. She'd only ever been truly close to her parents and to David, but those bonds had proved so fragile it was ludicrous. _She _might have been the one to leave, but her parents had deserted her the moment things had gotten bad, and of course David would hardly have stuck by the girl who'd put him in a coma for three months. They hadn't loved her enough to support her, but Logan had supported her even before he'd known her well enough to consider her a friend. He'd stuck by her after their arrival in the mansion, looking for her when he might easily have just taken off again and left her there. He hadn't been under any obligation to her, but he'd stayed all the same, and that was remarkable for a man as rootless as Logan had always been. Should she count that as a miracle? Most days she did, but then Logan himself was a miracle, wasn't he?

Of course, as intense as their first moments together had been, that was nothing to what would come later. Everything had changed again, their first night in the mansion. Whatever his reasoning, Logan had insisted that his room be next to hers, and she'd been perfectly able to hear his cries when the nightmares had begun. She hadn't known, then, that they came every night, that he'd get over it on his own if he just had some space, and she'd been worried enough to go to him. She'd snuck into his room—something she would _never_ do again—and tried to shake him awake. Their relationship was still so new at that point, and she hadn't realized how dangerous it would be to sneak up on the Wolverine. In what would qualify as the world's worst understatement, he hadn't reacted well. He'd lashed out, just as quickly as he had in the bar, and run her through with his claws.

And oh, gods, the _pain…_

It wasn't like anything she'd ever experienced, having those admantium claws sliding through her, sinking into her poison skin without the slightest bit of difficulty. She would spend the rest of her life believing that even childbirth couldn't compare with the agony of that, though of course that wasn't a theory she would likely be able to test. She'd felt the metal go through her, piercing skin and muscles and probably lungs, making her finally realize how vulnerable she really was, and even though he'd retracted his claws immediately, she'd also known it was too late for her. The damage had already been done.

She was dying.

He'd realized it even before she had, and he'd stared at her for a long second, shock and guilt and horror in his eyes. _She _had felt a little guilty just seeing his pain, and even through the worst agony she'd ever felt up until then, she'd wanted so badly to chase the worry from his face. She hadn't wanted him to feel guilty over her, not when she still didn't quite believe she was worthy of it, and so she'd reached out to him, for the moment completely forgetting about her poison skin, and grazed the side of his face with her fingers. Her touch had felt so light, even to her, and perhaps that was why she didn't think about the danger she was putting him in until after her powers had kicked in again. The veins had started popping out of his face, just as they had with David, only this time it was worse because she knew what she was doing to him and what she was doing to herself, and because even after she'd realized what was happening she still couldn't seem to pull her fingers away. Perhaps the instinct for survival that had kept her alive this long wouldn't let her, and perhaps it was only that using her powers made her just as helpless as her victims, but she'd practically killed him before she was able to let go.

Logan had collapsed on the floor, his strong body convulsing just as David's once had, his eyes too wide and his surprisingly sensitive mouth open and gasping for air. Marie had stared, horrified, down at the man she'd already started to love, knowing that if she tried to help him he'd be lost for certain, only belatedly realizing that a crowd had gathered at the door. Jean was also there, by then, and as the older woman bent and starting the grim process of saving Logan's life, Marie turned and fled back to her own room. She honestly hadn't noticed the way everybody else scattered to let her through, though she would think about it often enough later. She'd only locked herself in her rooms, not hearing the whispers of the others still in the hallway, ignoring the few mutants brave enough to call out to her through the thick door. She knew they meant well, Jean and Scott and Storm and this professor of theirs, but she honestly hadn't cared about them at all. She'd been too busy to worry about anyone but herself, because while she was truly afraid for Logan even though she believed he would heal, she'd had her own demons to fight.

She'd gone through hell, when she'd absorbed David. She'd had to cope with thoughts that didn't belong to her, with wants and needs not her own, and at first she'd been in danger of going insane from the sheer stress of it. Still, as hard as she'd struggled with David's presence in her mind, that was nothing to having_ Logan_ inside her head. David had been just an innocent kid, with nothing more on his mind than the next football game or the next history test, than wondering how the girl he had a crush on would react if he tried to kiss her. His experiences hadn't been all that much different from hers, though she'd been a little too preoccupied and a little too inexperienced at the time to realize how much easier that made absorbing him.

Logan was another matter entirely. He wasn't young and he certainly wasn't innocent, and he was more worldly than any ten men combined. He knew more about the seedier side of life than probably anybody ever should. He was a man with doubts and questions of his own, with a haunted past and nightmares awful enough to resemble horror flicks—nightmares that Marie would inevitably begin to share, though she never burdened Logan with the knowledge of that. He didn't need to know that her sleep would become as haunted as his own, that the shock of memories so completely different from anything she could ever have prepared herself for had almost been too much.

Then again, as horrible as the memories were, Logan's personality had been a much bigger obstacle. There was nothing unobtrusive about Logan, nothing peaceful, and even though she'd only taken a small part of him, he was so much more powerful that she almost lost herself to him. Marie had eventually learned to shove that-which-was-David aside, to push him into one corner of her mind where he couldn't interfere too much, but she couldn't do that with Logan. The man was infinitely stronger than the boy could ever be, and Logan was…different in other ways, as well. Logan had another side to him, a possessive and slightly nonhuman side, and it was that which caused Marie the most problems. Once Logan was in her head, that piece of him wasn't content to be ignored, as David had been. The Logan-in-her-mind wanted all of her, wanted her attention and her thoughts and her soul, and there was nothing peaceful or benign about that wanting.

It hadn't been an easy struggle, for Marie. She would never quite get used to Logan being in her head, and she'd needed hours upon hours just to regain enough of herself to keep him at bay. She'd fought with Logan, argued and explained and pleaded and then argued some more. The Logan in her mind absolutely refused to be shoved aside, and he hadn't quite understood why he didn't have the right to control her. He hadn't understood that his being inside her didn't make her _his_, and it had taken every ounce of her self-control to keep him from taking over anyway.

They'd eventually come to a truce, though it would never be a perfect one. Logan-in-her-head promised that as long as she didn't try to pretend he wasn't there, he wouldn't try to possess her. She'd agreed to that, because knowing Logan as well as she now did, she'd realized that this was the best she could hope for. Still, her actions hadn't been without consequences. The bit of Logan she would always carry with her might have promised not to dominate her, but from that moment on, she lived with a running commentary inside her head. Every time she did or said something, every time she had a problem or a triumph or anything else, she'd hear Logan's voice. It never faded into the background as David's had, and it never stopped arguing with her, later supporting her and comforting her but still fighting with her over just about everything. It never let her alone, though sometimes she would be grateful for it. She hadn't, for one thing, needed to worry about the real Logan hating her for what she'd done. She knew, now, that the man she'd just permanently tied her life to would never blame her for trying to save herself, would never blame her for reaching out to him in a moment of need. They may have known each other only a short time, but there was a bond between them, and he could never resent her for what she'd done.

_"I skewered you," _the Logan in her head had told her as she cowered in her room, still unwilling to leave even though their fight was over, _"and you tried to suck the life out of me. We're even, kid." _

She wasn't afraid of Logan hating her, though she'd known the others at the mansion would. She hadn't come out of her room for a long time, but when she did, she wasn't so caught up in her struggles with Logan-in-her-head to notice how everyone else was looking at her, how they flinched away from her. They'd reacted just as she'd once feared her parents would, and even if Mystique hadn't come along and tried to scare her away from the Institute, she probably would have left anyway. She'd only been waiting for Logan to recover, wanting to at least apologize and make certain he was all right before taking off again, but after Mystique's visit, she hadn't been able to do even that. She'd only wanted to get away, to go back on the road and return to being the nameless, friendless street kid she'd been just days before because that would cause so much less pain than the guilt could. After what she'd done to Logan, it seemed better for everyone that she be completely alone.

She should have known Logan would come after her. Now that he was in her head, now that she knew him better than anyone ever could, she also knew that he recognized the bond between them, whatever it was, and that he wouldn't just let her walk away. And he hadn't. He'd come after her, somehow found her, and as she'd stared up into his eyes from her seat on the train, she hadn't seen anything but the same quiet acceptance he'd been offering all along. He'd sat down next to her, letting her see the sincere regret in his face, taking her own in stride and not letting either of them dwell on what had happened. He'd put some of his own faith in her instead, told her to follow her own instincts rather than just threatening to drag her back like some wayward child as anyone else probably would have, and then listened quietly when she finally told him the story she'd vowed never to tell anyone. He hadn't even turned from her when she finally confessed that she carried both David and Logan himself in her head, though he'd looked understandably uncomfortable. He'd only reached out to her, pulled her to him and held her while she cried on his shoulder.

If she hadn't loved him before, she would have then.

She'd leaned against him, body tense even though she had never felt so safe or so cherished in her life, breathing in the intense, masculine scent of him. He'd been so at ease with her, not seeming to care that one wrong move would bring her deadly skin back into contact with his, and that only served to draw her even more deeply into his spell. She'd have done whatever he told her to do, in that moment, even if he'd asked her to return to her parents, even if he'd asked her to throw herself in front of the train, and all because he'd had faith in her, all because he hadn't been afraid of her. And so, when he'd suggested she return to the Institute and give the professor another chance, she'd instantly agreed. She would have even if he hadn't promised to stay with her, to care for her and look out for her, because by then she owed Logan too much. Denying him would have been worse than denying herself, and she couldn't bring herself to do it.

Then again, she hadn't had much of a chance to show that to Logan himself. The train had jerked to a stop only a moment later, bits of metal twisting everywhere and making her wonder if commitment-phobic Logan's promise to stay with her had somehow triggered Armageddon. The back of the train had all but exploded, the sides of the car ripping away in a shower of sparks and burning wires and tortured metal. Logan had surged to his feet, ignoring the people scrambling to get out of danger, ignoring the way their screams only grew as more of the train disappeared, dragged away by some force worse than God.

Marie hadn't blamed them for screaming, though she'd been far too scared to cry out herself. This mutant whom the world would come to fear, the one everyone else would know as Magneto but whom she would always label _Erik_, was terrifying by any standard. Every line of his body was oozing so much menace that she hadn't needed Logan-in-her-head screaming at her to stay down and out of sight, hadn't needed the quick glance of warning the real Logan sent her. Only an idiot wouldn't have been afraid of this man in the tacky red suit, the man with so much death lurking in his eyes that he made Logan look like a boy scout in comparison.

He'd floated towards them, features so calm and cold and _smug _as he defied gravity that she wouldn't have classified him as human even if he hadn't already been a mutant. And Logan, who had always seemed invincible to her and whom she would _still _believe was invincible even after this, hadn't stood a chance. The mutant had simply lifted one hand, features tightening with malicious amusement as he took control of Logan's body, manipulating Logan like some sort of twisted puppeteer. Logan had been lifted into the air, his arms stretched out, his claws bent and his handsome face twisting in pain and then in fear as Magneto revealed the truth behind his presence on the ruined train.

She'd known she couldn't escape. The man had stopped a moving train, had stopped a protectively enraged _Logan_—which she would always believe had been the harder task—but then she hadn't really cared about escaping, just then. For once, her thoughts were not at all for herself, and all for Logan. She'd wanted to get away for his sake alone, had wanted to distract the man with the weird outfit and keep him from hurting Logan any more. Logan's life meant so much more to her than her own, and even when the needle had sunk into her neck, even as she'd found herself losing her grip on reality and crashing to the floor, her only thought had been that at least Logan would be safer without her…

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**Reader Responses:**

**Dark-lil-devil: **S'okay. I'm just glad your reviewed at all! Thanks for the compliments!

**Blackdaisy**Will do. Thanks for reading!

**Jeneree**I adore you for the compliments! It's fantastic motivation, you know, to be told that something you've done is beautiful. I'm so glad you liked what I've done with Rogue, as well. Thanks for the review!

**Sassy-chan: **Ah, Sassy. It's always a pleasure to hear from you, especially when I know you're not all that familiar with most of the genres I work in. It's a great compliment that you'd come around anyway.

I'm glad you liked my insights. This is just the way I took the movie, though admittedly some of it isn't all that obvious unless you're insane. I'm overjoyed that you think so highly of me!

Loved the comments you made, and I look forward to hearing from you again!

**Hachigatsu**** and Shigatsu: **Thank you. It means a great deal, coming from someone of your caliber. I'm glad you liked it, and I hope to hear from you in the future.

**Jakathera**Thanks! I adore you for reviewing!

**TheWolf**I appreciate the commentary. It's been fantastic to hear from you, and I hope you stick with me until the end of this story (all four chapters of it, probably).


	4. Altering Liberty

**A.N.:** After just over two years, I'm finally updating this fic! I was away from fanfiction for a while, but I promise that I won't go so long between updates ever again.

Several of you have been asking if I plan to incorporate events from the third movie into this fic. Well, I _was _planning on it, but having finally seen the third movie…let's just say we'll be pretending it doesn't exist. That okay with you? Good, because including it would mean having to watch it again, and I think a second viewing would make my brain dribble out my ears or something. It was _that _bad.

Don't get me started. Really.

I will say, however, that this fic is probably going to be longer than my originally planned four chapters. I'm not sure how far I'll be taking it, but there _will_ be more.

And many thanks to my betas, **Huri** (especially Huri, who caught way too many mistakes and stupid ideas) and **Magician**!

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CHAPTER FOUR: Altering Liberty

No matter how long she lived, no matter how much she matured and no matter how well she learned to deal with her past, Marie knew that she would never completely recover from what had happened to her on Liberty Island. She would spend the rest of her life dealing with the aftermath of it, dealing with the nightmares and the pain and, yes, even the guilt. She'd dragged so many others into her problems, dragged _Logan _into them and then nearly gotten him killed again, and part of her—most of her, maybe—still didn't think she was worth it.

Magneto hadn't helped with that last part, either. From the moment she'd come to on the boat, bound and sore and so far beyond scared that the word no longer even applied, he'd let her know just how worthless she was. _Pawn_, he was calling her in his thoughts. She wouldn't know that until much later, of course, until after everything was over for everyone else and just beginning again for her, but she'd seen it in his eyes even then. She hadn't needed his rants about justice to know she was going to die, either. She'd seen _that_ in his eyes, as well, though she hadn't been able to stop herself from asking the question anyway.

"Are you going to kill me?"

Her voice had trembled more than she'd wanted, of course; even with Logan-in-her-head telling her to be brave, telling her that everything would be all right because naturally the real Logan would be coming for her soon, she was still only fifteen years old. She was still facing a madman and his psychotic, shape-shifter girlfriend with only the voices in her head to help her, and the Logan who counted wasn't here yet.

It helped only a little that she knew he would be soon. The part of her that kept whispering _worthless _in her head still didn't want him to come, to risk himself for her yet again. She hadn't tried to save him on the train only to let him die for her a few hours later, had she? Then again, she also knew that Logan had a promise to keep, and knowing him as well as she did, the rest of her was only hoping he'd find her in time.

Magneto had looked at her for only a second, weighing and judging and probably finding her wanting, before the answer had come. "Yes," he'd told her quietly, gravely, the intense emotion now in his voice all for his cause and not for her, and then, because she just wasn't horrified enough, he'd told her what her role in his insane plan was to be.

She'd tried to speak, to say something snappy in return or to at least tell the bastard how crazy he was, but the words wouldn't come. She was too shocked by it all, too appalled that she would be part of this. She found herself wishing that Mystique or the furry one with the bad breath—Sabertooth?—would just kill her now, before she was somehow forced to bring this curse to anyone else.

"Put her in the machine," Magneto had told the smelly goon, and she'd finally stopped struggling against the handcuffs keeping her a prisoner. The Logan-in-her-head hadn't let her quit until now, not even when the skin at her wrists tore and the blood began to flow, but the fear that surged in her at the harsh command was too strong, and she couldn't hear him anymore.

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Sabertooth had taken Marie to the top of the Statue, chained her to the machine that would bring her death and then, with unintentional mercy, left her with only her fear for company. She'd immediately started struggling again, knowing it was useless but unable to stop herself, not really noticing or caring when the tears finally came. She'd tried reminding herself that Logan _was_ coming for her, that he would save her if anyone could. She tried telling herself that she wouldn't actually have to go through this, but hope had died the moment she'd felt the cool metal of the machine against her skin, and she couldn't pretend anymore. She'd finally had to accept that Logan wasn't going to get to her in time, and that her death would likely be very painful and far from quick.

She'd started crying in earnest, then, calling out for help even though she'd known help wasn't there…but then _Magneto_ was there, and of course she couldn't think of anyone else with this madman so close. He was there and whispering that he was sorry—looking _almost_ as though he meant it—even as he cupped her face in his hands, even as her powers kicked in and she began draining him. She felt his own abilities leech from him and into her, felt her hands latch onto the machine, drawn and held by a force she didn't know how to control and that still felt alien though it was now a part of her.

And suddenly, as the power she'd never wanted continued to surge through them both, as her mind opened to an even greater awareness of the metals that threatened her life, a new fear was born within her, as well. The worst part of all of this, she slowly realized, wasn't that she was going to die, or that the machine which would kill her now felt _alive _to her. It wasn't even that this cape-wearing lunatic was going to win and hurt so many people…no, the worst part was that when she died, she wouldn't even be_ herself_.

She'd been too occupied with her terror, before, to think much about exactly _how _Magneto planned to use her, but never in a million years would she have guessed that he'd sacrifice even himself for his cause, that he'd willingly touch her when he'd probably known what would happen. And even if she could have anticipated this, _he_ wasn't something for which she really could have prepared herself.

Magneto wasn't Logan any more than Logan had been David. When Logan had tried to possess her, he'd done it because she was his and he had to protect what was his, because forcing his choices upon her would keep her safer than her own could, because he knew what was best for her—or thought he did, which amounted to the same thing where Logan was concerned. As much as she'd had to fight him, as close as she'd come to losing herself to his control, he'd still done it _for her_. And as Magneto's personality and thoughts and goals flooded her mind, she finally realized that this was all that had saved her. Had Logan cared less for her, had he not held himself back for her sake, she never would have stood a chance.

Magneto was not Logan. She was still nothing more than a pawn to him, and if he tried to possess her, it was hardly because he wanted to keep her safe. No, as Erik became Marie and Marie became Erik, as Marie almost forgot why there should even be a difference between the two, she knew that Erik was trying to possess her simply because he could, because he was stronger than she was and that made possession his right. He _deserved _to control her, and as his thoughts smothered hers and her physical struggles mattered less than the greater mental ones, she almost agreed.

Because now she _understood…_

She understood why Erik was the way he was, why he was doing this. Men like the Professor and Logan had been shaped by their losses, refined by their trials, but Magneto was different. While the fires Magneto had passed through had certainly burned away many of his weaknesses, they'd also made him cold. He was almost beyond fear, now, beyond love. He cared only for his cause; even his own life meant nothing to him in comparison, so how could she have expected hers would?

Maybe _that _was the worst part, after all, to understand why she was being sacrificed, why Erik was doing any of this at all. To have this monster be so much a part of herself that she couldn't even hate him for what he'd done to her...

Her absorption of Magneto hadn't lasted long, and that was an accidental mercy, too. A minute, maybe two, and then Magneto's life force began to ebb, and his hold on her eased. His hands slipped away; the connection shattered. Not that it mattered, of course, because even when he'd stopped touching her and his physical self had ceased to be a factor, he was still with her, and the nightmare wasn't even close to ending. He'd dropped to the ground, somehow still alive but only barely, and she'd found the strength to scream.

That hadn't mattered, either. Nobody came for her, nobody would…and there wasn't any more time anyway, because the machine suddenly sparked to greater life and began the deadly work she now comprehended so intimately. Gears began to grind all around her, the platform under her feet suddenly lifting her to the top of the torch. It locked into place at the top, and more gears began to move. The metal bands above and around her began to spin, shattering the torch in the process and sending bits of crumpled metal flying into the bay. She didn't notice; Magneto's death trap was fulfilling its purpose by then, somehow taking her power—_their _power—and using it against her, draining her just as completely as she had drained Magneto. White light flared from somewhere within the machine, her power made manifest, tangible. It streamed over her and through her, searing away what little strength she'd retained in spite of everything, magnifying her curse.

And then it got worse.

They say that when death comes, you see your life flashing before your eyes—see the smiles of loved ones, relive moments of joy or regret, finally realize what meant the most to you. Marie didn't experience any of that, which was fortunate, because she probably wouldn't have known which were her memories and which were David's or Logan's or Erik's anyway. As death approached and her vision began to dim, she wasn't thinking about her parents and how much she wished things could have been different. She wasn't thinking about the things she'd left undone, the people she would miss. She wasn't even thinking about Logan and how glad she was to have known him at all, how grateful she was to have loved him even if he could never have returned it. She was only thinking of the pain.

It hurt more than she'd expected, more than _Erik _had expected, even though he'd gone through a lesser version of it only days before. The light felt like acid on her skin, but the pain _inside _was far worse, leaching into her very cells, draining her and killing her. She'd screamed again, far weaker this time because she just didn't have the energy to fight anymore, but the pain only intensified. An instant later, she couldn't even cry out.

She would have welcomed death, then, if she'd been able to think that coherently. The pain alone was enough to make her want it, and she really was tired of fighting. She didn't even care anymore about the people who would be hurt by this, didn't care anymore about how Logan would feel when he realized she was dead. She just…didn't care.

And it was a nice feeling, or would have been if she hadn't hurt so much.

Her world went black. Physical senses faded and died, and the tiny portion of her joint mind that still worked knew she'd lost consciousness. _Good, _she thought tiredly, ignoring both Erik's satisfaction and the resurfacing Logan's panic, _it's about time. _

And then there was nothing.

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Marie had never been a particularly religious person. Sure, she'd been raised a Baptist, just like practically everyone else in the South, but she'd never spent a lot of time thinking about what came _after_. The younger Marie had been too full of hopes and dreams and plans, and like all teenagers, she'd known nothing really bad would ever happen to her.

Until it had, and she'd found herself spending far too many nights huddled under bridges with only hunger and fear for companions. Death wasn't as foreign a concept to Rogue as it had been to the more innocent Marie, though Rogue had been more concerned with the _how _and _when _and _how can I avoid it? _aspects of death than with the _where do I go from here? _portion. Even so, she'd started piecing together all the things her mother had once tried to teach her, started thinking about lights at the ends of tunnels, about warmth and peace and the welcoming smiles of long-absent relatives. She'd started wondering if she was even worthy of heaven in the first place.

Apparently, she'd wasted her time with all that thinking, because when the machine finally killed her, there was no heaven or hell or anything in between. There was only the horror of mind and soul shattering, of having those parts of her that _weren't_ her pulling away, separating and taking everything they were with them. She was helpless to stop it—why would she even _want _to stop it?—but then they were gone, and her wants didn't matter any more than they usually did. The others had left her, and for the first time since she'd kissed David, she was completely alone again.

She hadn't thought that could ever be a bad thing, but she soon discovered that it was. The silence was intense enough to be painful, and while she still didn't know how she was supposed to be feeling about all of this, she knew the part of her that was Rogue was also gone. Rogue had been David and Logan and now Erik along with Marie, and without them, she was just Marie again.

She no longer knew how to be Marie.

It was ironic, really, that it'd taken death to show her how false her dreams for the past year had been. All she'd wanted, since that first awakening of her powers, was to be herself again. She'd wanted her memories to actually _be_ hers, to know if what she wanted was really something _she _wanted. And now that death had granted that wish, now that her mind was no longer something that had to be shared, she only felt…hollow.

It hurt, to be this alone.

She really wished she hadn't died.

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Marie would never know how much time she'd spent lost within her own mind, adrift in the emptiness that had consumed her when she'd died…or almost died…or whatever it was she'd done. She would never know exactly when things had changed, either; all she would ever know was that she'd been alone, so horribly alone…and then her world had shifted again, and she suddenly wasn't.

It started suddenly, progressed slowly, changed everything.

A spark of…_something_ flared in the emptiness consuming her, the barest hint of returning other-self. She was reaching for it before she even knew what it was, instinct and desperation driving her in equal measures. She pulled it into herself, wrapped mind and soul around it so it couldn't escape again.

The spark brought a memory, and as she embraced that, as well, it didn't matter that she hadn't been the one to create it. The memory instantly became a part of her, blending so completely into her own memories that she immediately forgot it hadn't been hers to begin with.

Another spark, another memory. Was it Logan's? Erik's? She wasn't sure, but she didn't much care, either. It was _hers, _after all.

The memory merged with the rest.

Two memories became three, and then four, and soon her mind was being flooded with the thoughts and dreams of those other selves she'd thought she'd lost for good. Sometimes she could tell whose they were; sometimes she couldn't. Their desires fused and shifted within her, occasionally fought against each other and became something else entirely, but they were always hers.

She could hear their voices in her head again.

It wasn't exactly painless. It'd hurt to lose them, but it hurt more to get them back. She wasn't strong enough, this time, to keep any part of herself separate from them, and that changed things. They burrowed deep inside her, tore her apart and rebuilt her. Their dreams reshaped some of hers, changed the way she viewed herself and everything else. They made her doubt herself even as they gave her the confidence to fight those doubts, hated her even as they loved her. They argued over her, tried to control her, tried to protect her.

Once before, when Logan had tried to possess her, Marie had learned what it meant to battle demons. She'd learned what insanity felt like, what it was to lose control of her own mind. She'd fought those demons, had eventually beaten them back until she could regain at least a little of herself, but now...

Now, as the demons returned and the threat of insanity lurked over her once more, she found that she wasn't alone in this fight. Logan stood with her, lending her his strength, encouraging her and reminding her that if _he _didn't have the right to possess her, Erik certainly didn't.

Even David contributed to the battle, though he'd never been much more than a faint presence in her mind. Still, while he didn't have any of his own strength to give her, he could at least help her remember who she was. He'd known her when she was only Marie, back before Logan and Erik and her travels had changed her into someone else. _He _knew what it meant to be Marie, even if she didn't, and his gift to her was that core of self. The demons could invade every part of her, but as long as she didn't forget who she'd been, she wouldn't lose herself entirely.

It was another kind of strength.

Time had so little meaning, in this darkness of her mind, and she couldn't have measured the minutes or hours or even days that she'd spent fighting Erik's attempts at possession. All she knew was the fight, the struggle against herself and the others inside her. There wasn't enough left of her for anything else.

Still, some part of her was dimly surprised by how much stronger the Logan-in-her-head now was. If he hadn't been more focused on defeating Erik than on controlling Marie, she knew she wouldn't have been able to stand against him this time. He was everywhere in her mind now, a presence just as strong within her as her own. His thoughts had become entwined with hers, and only David's gift was keeping them separate at all. She wondered if he realized that she was in just as much danger from him as she was from Magneto, then decided that it didn't matter. Logan wasn't the one trying to control her, after all.

And she was already his.

It didn't last forever. However long it had taken, Logan was eventually able to shunt that-which-was-Erik to one corner of Rogue's mind, to smother his voice and bury his memories deeply enough within her that her every action and thought wouldn't be ruled by them. Erik-in-her-mind suddenly found himself trapped behind invisible bars, and while the prison wasn't perfect and she could still hear him, they all knew the battle was over.

At least for now.

The reprieve was to be a short one. Marie had run out of mercies, and before she could do more than acknowledge the end of her struggle, the darkness smothering her physical senses abruptly fled. She came back to herself with a jolt, part of her already knowing what she would find, all of her dreading it.

She opened her eyes…and her heart died within her as every fear was confirmed and her savior collapsed in front of her.

She'd saved herself, but she'd killed Logan.

She should have stayed dead.


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